You know, it’s one thing to gloss over the breathless hype of the recruiting sites or to count the stars in the 247Sports Composite. It’s quite another to see the aggregation of talent Kirby Smart has to deploy at his fingertips. It’s an embarrassment of riches.
That’s my takeaway from a brutally hot day in Sanford Stadium (and bless whomever had a hand in the mercifully sensible decision to shorten the fourth quarter by five minutes). In a game when the Dawgs’ offensive line play was sluggish — and with the weather, that was understandable — it seemed like every time the offense was on the verge of bogging down, there was a skill position player to step up and make a big play.
The story was similar on defense, as the middle of the line wasn’t at its best, but the outside speed cleaned up a lot of problems. As far as special teams go, if you were worried about Nizialek’s departure, don’t be. Camarda appears to have a bigger leg.
I’m not here to say Georgia looks like it’s ready to scale even greater heights this season than it did in 2017, but it sure as hell looks like Kirby’s carrying a loaded toolbox.
On to the bullet points:
- Lining Robertson up next to Hardman in the slot is going to make more than a few defensive coordinators’ sphincters tighten this year.
- Likewise, Cook coming out of the backfield on a wheel route is going to be a matchup nightmare. (Too bad that won’t happen in the first half in Columbia.)
- Yeah, Chaney played it vanilla. We may have seen more swing passes yesterday than we’ll see in the next two or three games, combined. And the one thing you would have thought would be a no-brainer — testing AP’s secondary deep with all that receiving speed — never happened.
- There are plenty of receiving options, too. I thought I counted at least ten different players with catches, but I may have lost count.
- D’Andre Swift makes it look easy, doesn’t he?
- The game may have made it especially convenient to do so, but I thought the coaches did a good job handling the quarterbacks. Fromm had one bad read when he tried to force a ball downfield into double coverage, but otherwise looked smooth. Fields is gonna be a handful down the road, but he seemed a little too wired at the start, quickly bailing on a pass play to run if the first read wasn’t there. He did settle down after he got his feet wet and made a nice throw for his touchdown pass.
- Pass protection was fine, for the most part, especially considering that AP’s best defensive player is an outside lineman who rushes the quarterback well. Run blocking, on the other hand, left something to be desired too often for my taste. I didn’t think either starting tackle dominated — in fact, a few times it appeared they never got a block down. That being said, the overall deeper bench I hoped to see looks like it’s there.
- Touchdown pass to Nauta. I hope that doesn’t use up his quota for the year.
- On defense, my biggest concern about replacing Roquan Smith turned out to be pass coverage from the ILBs. AP may not have been the biggest test in the world for that, but I didn’t see anybody who looked ready to step up in that regard.
- The middle of the d-line gave up more ground than I was expecting.
- Terrific speed from the young OLBs, Cox and Anderson. The latter made a play in the second half that showed great instincts.
- Walter Grant shocked me by losing contain a couple of times. I never saw that from him last season.
- AP didn’t really have much of a passing game, so it’s hard to judge the secondary, but there’s little doubt that Campbell looks the part of a big-time cornerback — size, good speed, ability to change direction and a willingness to mix it up playing the run. Still, true freshman’s gonna true freshman. It was fun watching Kirby coach him up after a play to the sideline.
- Correct me if I’m wrong, but did Austin Peay attempt a single throw Deandre Baker’s way?
- Saw some good production from the safeties, including Gibbs. Best single play I saw from the group came from Otis Reese, who tracked a receiver across the field to make an unassisted tackle. He’s a keeper.
- Tucker kept things just as vanilla as Chaney did. I suspect that changes this week.
- Special teams? Rodrigo is Rodrigo: nothing but touchbacks and perfection on extra points and one field goal. Camarda unveiled a big leg, but I suspect Kirby wants a little more touch, as two of his bombs wound up being touchbacks. One area of concern was rather poor support on punt returns. Granted, there wasn’t a need to take chances, but there was never any room for Hardman or Crumpton. You don’t want to waste weapons like that if you’ve got ’em.
- I suspect this is the perfect kind of cupcake opener for Kirby. Nobody got hurt, the team looked like it’s full of potential, but there’s plenty of room for improvement.
Taking care of business is kind of boring, especially on a furnace of a day. Now, it’s on to the next furnace… oops, game.
The middle of the d-line was concerning. Overall the defense is supremely talented but young, and there will be growing pains when we face talented QBs next week and in Mizzou. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not expecting a blowout win like some around here. I feel next week will be too close for comfort until the 4th.
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O-line and D-line didn’t dominate the way I anticipated. I think opening the playbook will keep defenses honest and help the run blocking, but we’ll need to hunker down up front to limit the USCe run game. I’m confident that CKS in on the mother.
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I’m glad there were no injuries.
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Good synopsis….overall, I give an A. Tough to tell what kind of team we considering the competition & as many as we played. Too hard to get any kind of continuity when we are subbing them like that. We will find out more next week when the starters play longer. Look for SC to test our freshman corner. I know he is all-world, but he will be tested…hope he is ready.
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Thank you, Sir, for that first, “Observations from the 35”, post of the season!
I think we all kind of have pretty much the same impressions. A plain game designed not to display scheming, but to evaluate efforts.
CWM will have noticed the weakness in the middle of the defense,but that and maybe the lackadaisical looking effort by the offensive line were the things I can worry about.
I think they will be addressed this week.
And as I mentioned in an earlier post, USCe was playing for the big score and win..just trying to get their train on track for next week. CKS must believe his train is already on track and rolling..or he has a completely different idea of the purpose of cupcakes are than CWM.
In other words, I don’t think we saw Georgia play. We saw a glorified practice for newbies and subs.
I enjoyed it. I sat in my air conditioned man-cave with a sweat-shirt on to knock the chill down. I also got to see snippets of Tennessee’s less than impressive debut. I would have loved to have been in Sanford, though
BTW..UGA got a shout out from the announcers of the ND/MI game. They mentioned how much red and black had been at opener in SBend last year and compared it to the mostly green color of the crowd yesterday.
Lastly…I told y’all last year that App St. is a dangerous team. Long live the App St. meme!
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Good observation on Smart/Muschamp approach to the games…agree.
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So, who does PSU get to replace Franklin? He’s gotta go, right? Celebrating an OT win over App State is a fireable offense as we all know.
😉
Dawgs looked good but hard to really evaluate against that competition. We may have the top two offensive units in the conference though.
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Dline and LB worry me more than expected. Grant looks really thin for his position. Gibbs, Lecounte, Campbell and Reed will beth best secondary in the country. I think the D is gonna have to lean on the O for a while.
I think the OL will be fine. RB kinda worried me outside of Swift. I already miss having guys who have good size but also speed and agility. I’m not putting anyone else down but Smart features the ruining game and it’s also 4 years of the last 2 greats. You can’t really ride 1 back anymore. I got kinda worried about all the touches Swift got early on. He was taking a lot of low hits yesterday.
These are just concerns after losing greats and only time will ease my mind, or not. I will say that we’ll soon have a 2nd string about as good as the first and the OL won’t be an excuse anymore. This is really what separates Bama- talent, depth and talented depth. That and apparently having a 5 star cheerleader if anyone saw that guy.
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Holifield looked damn agile on his TD runm
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Cook was pretty fast as well. Herrien isn’t a big drop off either.
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We’re good. It’s just the inner Munson coming out in folks.
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My apologies, this isn’t about the Georgia win..but it’s something I’ve just gotta do. If it’s necessary, please forgive me.
https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/tennessee-football/kirk-herbstreit-picks-tennessee-to-upset-west-virginia-in-season-opener/
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Herbie is going to Herbie.
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He has to play to his new neighbors in Nashville.
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I thought I recalled Baker breaking up one pass, but now I’m not sure.
DRob’s end around was sweet and the blocking on that was nice; I rewound that play several times because it just looked so pretty. Once he gets to the secondary – however he gets there – he is going to outrun most folks.
I liked watching Justin and hope he plays more, but I don’t think I would be ready to bench Fromm just yet 😉
I thought Kirby should consider letting someone else handle some kickoffs. 9 kickoffs, 1 FG, and 7 PATs is a lot of legwork on a hot Saturday
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Nope….at least it does not show up in the stats. What little he played, they stayed away from him:
https://georgiadogs.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=3062
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The talking heads on TV made the same observation as the Senator, no attempts at Baker.
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Dawgs by 14 next Saturday in a game not as close as the score indicates. We’re better than them across the board. I guarantee the staff has had this date circled on the calendar since January 9.
Please, South Carolina players or Boom, say something stupid over the next couple of days.
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By at least 14. Dawgs pull well away in second half.
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Good observations as usual. Like others here I too am a bit concerned about the play of our lines. I expected the O-line to just run those guys over, and they didn’t. Our D-line looks too slim for SEC play. Auburn’s D-Line looked pretty damn unblockable.
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The “I am worried about the O-line” folks forget that Thomas, Gilliard, and Cleveland were outstanding last year, and last year’s starter Baker got beaten out. The only personnel change that should cause worry is Wilson, a highly recruited 5 star.
We averaged 15 points a quarter playing the 1st and 2nd string line. That 15 points per quarter pac ed included time with a freshman wslk-on at QB in the 3rd quarter.
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Swift did not have as much room up the middle in the first few possessions like I expected. That is all I am saying. I am sure the O-line will be great though.
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Understood, but most of us were expecting cavernous holes for the RBs. Swift’s first run off left tackle was what we looked to continue all game. If we see a few big holes this next week, then we will know whether they were on cruise control or not.
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It hurts seeing two Georgia guys, Dontavious Russell and Derrick Brown, dominating on that Auburn DL. I think it was down to us and AU for both of them.
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Brown looked like a beast in the little bit of that game I got to watch, especially late.
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My favorite post of the week (when we win)! Well done Senator, thank you.
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Bluto…would love to get your thoughts on how the new stadium renovations looked.
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I’ll give you my impressions (my seats are on that end). The bridge gate (Gate 1) is awesome. I was in and out quickly using that gate. The plaza that’s there is going to be an excellent gathering/meeting place. I could barely see the whole scoreboard before because of my angle, but I could see everything now. The mural with the photos of the championship teams under the west end is awesome looking. The photos of key plays in past games on the pillars looked good. I walked past the entry to the recruiting lounge which looked spectacular.
On the negative side, my daughters gave up on trying the concessions areas on the south side 100 level. The lines were still out of control according to both of them.
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One of my favorite moments was watching Justin Fields blocking downfield on Holyfield’s touchdown run. The kid is a gamer.
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We were so good yesterday, we pulled out the little league rule and shortened a D1 college game.
Pound teams into submission
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Sometimes I think too deeply into these things but I’m hoping the lines were forced to play within their box. Basically sandbagging.
My other thought is that the team is probably pretty tired. Fall camp and game week leading up to a cupcake? I would presume Kirby pressed the men hard, all the way to Saturday. This coming week should be business like and time to heal and reap the benefits of all that hard work in August.
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And senator, do you have any control over the auto-redirect amazon ads? After I chase 5 links in your wordpress pages I get re directed automatically to other sites, apparently I keep winning some kind of opportunity to spend all my money.
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Same here. Have to close the page out and restart Get the Picture at least three times to escape Amazon pop-up.
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Same here.
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It happens when I’m using my phone. On a laptop, I’ve not had the problem.
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I kept getting them too, on my iPad. I closed out, cleared my cookies, and then tried again. After the third time, I just gave up. So far, so good on a laptop.
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I’m experiencing this problem but only on my mobile.
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I only use my iPad, I don’t do any fun stuff with my laptop. This redirect is very frustrating. I’ve tried all kinds of gymnastics to avoid it but other than closing the tab there’s no way around it. I haven’t tried using chrome yet, which I have done in the past for other hangups.
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Happening on Chrome browser within mobile phone also, even with everything updated, secured, and wiped. Must be redirect malware in one of the ads that randomly displays on the page.
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If you restart (completely shutdown) your iPad, it may fix the situation – found that on a Mac site and it worked for me.
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Yep.
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This might seem a little tin-foilish but given the experience we have on the OL and interior DL, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were sandbagging a bit yesterday to see if we could bait Mushamp into altering his game plan to try and run it up the middle on us and have his D blitzing up the middle out of the gate so we can compete a few big gainers and score first.
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Had the same thoughts. That would be pretty crafty of the coaching staff. I hope that’s what was happening.
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12 dimensional chess in da house!
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I don’t know if it was sandbagging, but it was definitely vanilla. I just rewatched the game, and through the first three quarters, I only saw a few pulls or crosses by our OL, and the only time I remember the OL blocking down line was on the TD run after the AP fumble. Otherwise mostly straight up drive and combo blocks to my relatively untrained eye.
After watching again, I felt better about the DL, but worse about the LBs. OLBs overran a few plays or got juked, and the ILBs weren’t great against the pass. Great speed, but need to improve on recognition.
So, I would say Kirby’s plan was definitely to play straight up and challenge our guys to out-muscle the other team, and even with 80+ players being rotated in and out just about every play, they mostly succeeded.
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Football shouldn’t start until October in the South. We’ll know a lot more about what we have about 7 pm next Saturday. Chickens be cack’ln.
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Senator, it looks like the malicious popups that hawk the scam free iPhone and Amazon gift cards is back. I’ve done some limited research and these seem to come from ads with malicious “forced redirects” to the scam sites. Just wanted you to know.
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I’ll send WP an email and see if I get a response.
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I’m getting them too.
I thought it was just my visits to pornhub coming back to haunt me but now I know someone else is having the issue here too, so maybe pornhub is clean. I mean… in a manner of speaking.
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After the game I had several observations I thought I could post when you put up your summary. You preempted all of them. As you observed, there is room for improvement but I’m confident Kirby can handle that.
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You should say ‘Let’s Go Peay’ quietly. Don’t have to let everybody know.
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This really was a sublime header. Be sure it’s noted in the GTP HOF archives.
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I love reading these. Can we not lobby for Dawgnation to buy these from you instead of whatever they’re putting out for game recaps?
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Regarding Bluto’s special teams comments, I’ve been wondering how things would work out this year. Kirby’s first year it was Beamer in charge, and that year was forgettable. Last year was the Beamer-Fountain combo – and the results were terrific. Now its Fountain in charge. We obviously have plenty of ST talent, so I expect us to be one of the best in cfb again.
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This is my favorite recurring post on this blog. Appreciate the thoughts Senator. I think the observations are pretty spot on. Lots of talent. Need experience. The lines need to play better. Tons of perimeter threats.
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